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Crysis Remastered > Guides > Nathan's Guides
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Quicksaving, console cvars, improvement project mod, Update DLSS and more.
By Nathan
Short guide detailing enabling quicksaving, links to resources like the improvement project mod, and some talk about commands to customize your visuals further. Also download for latest DLSS dll for potential performance improvements.
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Created by
Nathan
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Category: Modding or Configuration, Workshop
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
20 May, 2022 @ 10:14am
27 May, 2023 @ 2:35am
2,973 Unique Visitors
90 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
1. Get the Improvement Project Mod! 
Autoexec, quicksaving 
Console tweaking, basics 
All Console Commands 
Personal commands. 
Some explanation of commands above. 
Misc stuff about modding 
DLSS update 
Further resources. 
Comments
1. Get the Improvement Project Mod!
https://www.moddb.com/mods/improvement-project
In case steam removes links, it's just on moddb dot com / mods / improvement-project

The creator of the mod has been working on fixing the remaining issues that Crytek & Saber Interactive couldn't be bothered to address, though they are hampered by the lack of official SDK and map editing tools, they have done important improvements.
Autoexec, quicksaving
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Crysis Remastered\autoexec.cfg
(or wherever you've installed C:R, you can navigate there also by right-clicking C:R in your steam library, hovering over Manage > Browse Local Files)

Navigating to your Crysis Remastered installation directory, you should either create or open up the autoexec.cfg file that was added with the improvement project mod, you can open it with notepad, and into it you'll want to add most lines, I'll also mention other cfg files later, but autoexec is the easiest.

You should add into the at the very least con_restricted=0 at the top, and under it all the rest.

Now, quick saving.
bind f5 save bind f9 loadlastsave
That should do it.
Well, you also need devmode, and r_displayinfo=0 is also recommended
Replace f5 and/or f9 with the keys you want to use.

Can't believe they never added even this rudimentary binding to the options.
Of course we don't have the save menu like in OG, so this is just a checkpoint that you can create at any given time. But it's still miles above having nothing.
(A bad quicksave can cost you now more of course, so keep that in mind!)
I'll talk about more custom commands further down that are more personal.

BTW, for quicksaving to work, you need to enable devmode, see on that below.
(Won't disable achievements)
Console tweaking, basics
Let's enable devmode.
In your Steam library, right-click Crysis Remastered, or go to its page and in the right side click the gear icon, then select properties, and in the newly opened window add into the launch line section "-devmode", and potentially other ones, here are mine:
-devmode -console -high -USEALLAVAILABLECORES -nojoy -noforcemaccel
As far as I'm aware of you only need the devmode one, the rest are most likely redundant, I just copied them over from my Crysis OG launch lines when I installed C:R

With the -devmode in the launch parameters and con_restricted at 0 from your autoexec tweaking, access to the console and a sh*tton of commands becomes available, not just cheating, but a ton to help you find the balance of visuals you want with the system you have.

Sidenote, devmode enables a bunch of development information on your display, stuff that can distract and annoy when you're trying to just play and immerse in the game, but you can disable most of those without disabling devmode, with r_displayinfo =0 added to the autoexec cfg, below the con_restricted line for instance.

Sadly the "dumpcommandsvars" command doesn't work in C:R, which was a really helpful command just dumping every single variable that the game had in Crysis into a clear text file giving information about each line as well.
For now, you have to type the command into the console (tilde by default) and then at the end add "?", for example:
ti_DynamicResolution ?
and as you'd hit enter it would tell you what that line is.

When researching commands, the TAB key is your friend, it will autofill and suggest multiple candidates, so you can just go down the alphabet, simply typing e_a (b/c...) and pressing then TAB, and all lines will be spat out into the console, showing you what exists, alongside the values they are currently set to.

if you type ti_ (a/b/c...) and then autofill with TAB in the console, you'll discover interesting tidbits about the raytracing, like commands for turning on raytraced shadows (there's for diffuse, and for voxel), different integration modes, I haven't tested them, that's a bit too scary, but it's worth mentioning, could be interesting to experiment, see how much the game can do with RT maybe at some point.
Tried:
ti_ShadowsActive = 1
ti_SpecularTraceShadows = 1
Didn't have a huge impact on performance, not sure how exactly they change the appearance of the game, will test more.
All Console Commands
I figured out that the game saves in your "game.log" file all console activity for the last session, so I booted up C:R quickly, just went down alphabetically to print out all variables, closed the game, then copied the results of my log file online, here are all the lines from a-z (unless I forgot a letter)
https://justpaste.it/1qvdo
https : // justpaste dot it / 1qvdo
Personal commands.
Here's my autoexec:
con_restricted=0 r_displayinfo =0 sys_maxfps = 60 r_FullScreen = 1 r_Width = 1280 r_Height = 720 r_Vsync = 1 g_blood = 1 sys_spec = 4 sys_spec_full = 4 sys_spec_DLSS = 3 cl_fov=65 cl_bob=1.2 cl_fpbody=2 cl_hitshake=0 cl_hitblur=0 g_ragdollMinTime=999 e_DecalsLifeTimeScale=9 es_DebrisLifetimeScale=3 bind f5 save bind f9 loadlastsave -- sys_spec_ObjectDetail e_LodRatio=12 e_ViewDistRatioDetail=33 e_ViewDistRatio=44 e_ViewDistRatioCustom=77 e_ViewDistRatioLights=33 e_MaxViewDistSpecLerp=0.66 ca_AttachmentCullingRation=177 ca_FacialAnimationRadius = 22 e_TerrainOcclusionCullingMaxDist=144 e_RecursionViewDistRatio=0.1 e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistZPassMult=0.5 e_TerrainLodRatio=1.3 e_TerrainTextureLodRatio=1.3 e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistXY=1536 e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistZ=256 -- sys_spec_Particles e_ParticlesMaxScreenFill = 99 -- sys_spec_Physics e_CullVegActivation=40 es_MaxPhysDist=155 es_MaxPhysDistInvisible=22 e_FoliageWindActivationDist=18 g_breakage_particles_limit=111 -- sys_spec_PostProcessing r_ColorGradingChartsCache=4 r_MotionBlurMaxViewDist=33 r_PostProcessHUD3DCache=2 r_RainMaxViewDist_Deferred=99 r_HDREyeAdaptionCache = 4 r_dofMinZBlendMult=0.6 r_dofLowSpecBlurAmountMultiplier=0.4 -- sys_spec_RayTracing ti_specularLowResMode=2 ti_rt_interlacedY=2 ti_SpecularMaxResolution=512 ti_DiffuseMaxResolution=380 ti_RT_AlphaTest=1 ti_SpecularMaxRayDistanceScale=0.8 ti_VoxDynamicObjectsExtend=5 ti_VoxObjMaxViewDist=28 ti_VoxLODRatio=1 ti_RT_LodRatio=1 -- Experimental RT Boost mode (helps with flickering reflections) ti_SpecularBoost = 1 -- sys_spec_Shading e_GIMaxDistance=77 e_SkyUpdateRate=0.75 e_DynamicLightsMaxEntityLights=13 r_EnvTexUpdateInterval=0.06 ti_DiffuseLowResMode = 2 r_ssdoHalfRes=2 ti_VoxMaxInstances = 222 -- sys_spec_Shadows e_ShadowsMaxTexRes=720 r_ShadowJittering=1.5 e_ShadowsCastViewDistRatio=0.7 e_ShadowsResScale=2.6 e_GsmCache = 1 e_ShadowsMaxCastViewDist=333 e_ShadowsPoolSize=1536 -- sys_spec_Texture r_TexturesStreamingMipBias=2 r_TexResolution=3 r_TexSkyResolution=1 r_TexBumpResolution=2 r_EnvCMResolution=1 r_EnvTexResolution=1 r_DynTexMaxSize=55 r_ImposterRatio=1.5 r_DynTexAtlasCloudsMaxSize=24 r_DynTexAtlasSpritesMaxSize=24 r_TexMaxAnisotropy=16 r_TexAtlasSize=1024 r_TexturesStreamPoolSize = 2048 -- sys_spec_Vegetation e_VegetationSpritesDistanceCustomRatioMin=0.66 e_VegetationSpritesDistanceRatio=1 e_ViewDistRatioVegetation=36 -- sys_spec_VolumetricEffects r_BeamsDistFactor=0.02 r_BeamsMaxSlices=122 -- sys_spec_Water r_WaterUpdateFactor=0.01 e_WaterTesselationAmountX=66 e_WaterTesselationAmountY=66 r_WaterUpdateDistance=0.4 e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistReflectionPassMult=0.4 r_WaterCausticsDistance=77 q_ShaderWater=3 r_WaterCaustics=1 -- EXPERIMENTAL r_MotionBlur = 0 r_UseEdgeAA = 0 r_AntialiasingMode = 0 r_dlssEnableSharpness = 1 r_dlssSharpness = 0.44 e_TerrainAO = 1 e_ShadowsClouds = 1 e_ShadowsOcclusionCulling = 1 ti_DynamicResolution = 1 ti_UseApiBackedRaytracing = 1 ti_ShadowsMaxResolution = 512 i_iceeffects = 1 e_ParticlesEmitterPoolSize = 8192 e_ParticlesPoolSize = 16384 p_pool_size = 2048 -- Dynamic Resolution (Doesn't work?) r_DREnable = 3 r_DRDelta = 0.66 r_DRGPUTimeRange = 1.5 r_DRGPUTimeRangeStill = 4.5 r_DRMaxIndex = 32 r_DRMinTargetGPUTime = 66 r_CustomResMaxSize = 1080 r_CustomResHeight = 540 r_CustomResWidth = 960 r_CustomResPreview = 1 -- Experimental CPU utilization optimizations WIP p_num_jobs = 5 p_num_threads = 2 r_ShadersAsyncMaxThreads = 2 sys_job_system_max_worker = 11 ti_NumStreamingThreads = 2 sys_main_CPU = 0 sys_physics_CPU = 1 sys_streaming_CPU = 2 r_WaterUpdateThread = 5 e_CullerMT = 1 e_CullerThread = 4 e_CullerMTCoverageBuffer = 1 -- ti_SpecularTraceShadows = 1 -- ti_DiffuseTraceShadows = 1
Some explanation of commands above.
Some above are not not necessary like resolution, vsync, "g_blood", those are saved in the options menu when you use them, I mainly placed them there to give a full picture of what settings I'm playing at.
With those I have mostly 60fps 99% of the time, some minor dips when turning around and moving as it's clearly loading stuff.
My PC, a laptop:
Windows 11 Home 64-bit 8GB RAM
11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11400H @ 2.70GHz (12 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU 4GBVRAM

Now, working down the rationale behind my choices.
sys_spec_full = 4
Placing that close to the top first forces all settings at the "Very high", the "Can it run Crysis" settings (6) are mainly just longer draw distances and more particle effects and dynamic lights and such, so with 4 I'm already getting all the stuff from the original Crysis enabled, and the new stuff like ray tracing.
Everything below just customizes elements, I turned stuff down but not off, to still retain the look of the game at acceptable performance for my laptop.

To see what I mean, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Crysis Remastered\Engine\Config\CVarGroups (or where your C:R is installed) and open up one of the cfg files, like see the contents inside the sys_spec_water.cfg file, compare to mine above, you'll see it's a mixture of settings, making sure stuff is enabled, watershader at the highest, reflectionsquality at their highest to avoid losing some fancy shader, but then the values for tesselation and such a middleground between 3 & 4, high and very high.
Just as an example.
--------
cl_hitshake=0
cl_hitblur=0
Those disable some annoying screen effects when you're hit.
--------
"Experimental"
r_MotionBlur = 0
r_UseEdgeAA = 0
r_AntialiasingMode = 0

r_dlssEnableSharpness = 1
r_dlssSharpness = 0.44

e_TerrainAO = 1
e_ShadowsClouds = 1
e_ShadowsOcclusionCulling = 1
ti_DynamicResolution = 1
e_GsmCastFromTerrain = 1

Disabling anti aliasing is a personal choice, it does result in more jaggies, especially with DLSS on, but that's the cost of experiencing the only actually new flashy visuals the Remaster has to offer, raytracing, for my laptop.
DLSS Sharpness was by default off, I've seen better implementations of DLSS sharpness, in Doom Eternal for instance, but I still prefer it to not having it, the sharpness amount is also custom.

TerrainAO, was off by default, don't know why, on I see no visual glitches.
Same with all the rest below it. (I tried e_hwocclusioncullingobbjects or something like that, but that was buggy, screen flashed, so leave that at 0)

ti_UseApiBackedRaytracing=1, I took that from PCGW, for hardware accelerated RTX in case of performance problems.
------------
Now, these are my personal cvars to get the visual quality I want beyond the main menu options.
The "Can it run Crysis" (6 in sys_specs) seems like only an increase in quantity stuff, so don't feel bad if you can't run with those, it's not like a shift from some other settings where a bump from medium to high can not only mean just higher resolution textures or more particles, but the difference between the game enabling reflections, or parallax occlusion mapping, or dynamic shadows from certain light sources.

So that's my rationale, have everything on, then I went through the sys_spec configs, and started copying lines that I saw fitting to tweak down without losing the baby with the bathwater.

The game is still not perfectly optimized, in many places even with a higher resolution (1080p evn in some of my experiments) I can get 60fps, but still, the drops in others meant I lowered it to maintain more consistently that 60fps (RAM & VRAM are probably my bigger bottlenecks for stuff like that).
Misc stuff about modding
All pak files are openable with something like 7-zip, there are a lot of xml and lua files that are readable with notepad (I recommentd notepad++) inside them, that you can tweak, and like I said there are config files in the folders allowing further tweaking, in the "Engine/Config" folders, and the Game/Config folder has difficulty files, it's highly appreciated that at least all of this remains open for the community to tweak, like the modder who is working on fixing issues still lingering in C:R.

One little mention; increasing the fov (cl_fov) above 60 disables your first person body (seeing your own legs and such), but it is possible to re-enable them, by editing the player.lua file in the scripts pak (or open the zzz_ImprovementProject.pak where it's also edited -- Scripts\Entities\actor folder), and scroll down to
function Player:UpdateFOV() --FOV adjuster. Implement a nicer version with flowgraph integration soon. if(tonumber(System.GetCVar("sv_port")) ~= 2) then fovNum = tonumber(System.GetCVar("cl_fov")); if(System.GetCVar("sv_port") == 3) then if((fovNum + 1) > 80) then return; end fovNum = fovNum + 1; System.SetCVar("cl_fov", fovNum); elseif(System.GetCVar("sv_port") == 1) then if((fovNum - 1) < 60) then return; end fovNum = fovNum - 1; System.SetCVar("cl_fov", fovNum); end GameToken.SetToken("Game.General.FOV", tostring(fovNum)); System.SetCVar("sv_port", 2); if(fovNum > 60) then System.SetCVar("cl_fpBody", 0); else System.SetCVar("cl_fpBody", 2); end end end [...] function Player:ResetHack() [...] System.SetCVar("cl_fov", storedFOV); if(storedFOV > 60) then System.SetCVar("cl_fpbody", 0); else System.SetCVar("cl_fpbody", 2);
"if fovNum higher than 60, then cl_fpbody 0", well, turn that also to 2 (in both sections) and now you can still have your first person body and shadow along with your higher fov.
It might result in visual glitches, but I did a quick test with cl_fov=65 (in my autoexec) and I didn't immediately see any. Remember that Crysis calculates FOV vertically, so 60 isn't actually that small of a fov, don't go crazy editing it.

But, it remains to be seen if the SDK will be released, which would allow more freedom, which would be needed to fix some issues that I don't know if they can be fixed otherwise, like, as C:R is based on the console version, they went and edited maps to optimize them, removing stuff, like for instance the opening beach that you land on, a lot of static branches and stuff that you can't interact with anymore, which were originally just physics props like any other, and the waves are a lot more static that they are in the OG, which is a shame, the ocean looks less 3D in its motion compared to the OG.
DLSS update
You can find the official latest Nvidia dlss online, nvngx_dlss.dll, which you can download and extract into the Crysis Remastered/Bin64 folder, replacing the old one, latest version is 2.4.3, Crysis Remastered comes with 2.1.

Maybe backup the original one first just in case, but my testing shows everything runs fine with the latest one.
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-dll/

techpowerup dot com / download / nvidia-dlss-dll/
Further resources.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2737902478
A solid guide going over some basic debug/devmode stuff, most of it comes from Crysis 1 which still works here in the Remaster, few things don't (like dumpcommandvars :( )

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Crysis_Remastered
(pcgamingwiki dot com / wiki / Crysis_Remastered)
Of note from PCGW above, you can skip intro videos by deleting the IntroMovies.pak inside the "Game" folder in your C:R install directory, no harm comes from it.

Also, in the "\Game\Localized" folder, you can pretty safely delete all other language paks that you don't use to save up on some space.

------------------------------------

Umm, that's it, I highly recommend the improvement project mod, it should get an update soon according to dev comment over there on the main page.

Crysis Remaster does have aspects that look nicer compared to OG, the Raytracing makes lighting, global illumination and reflections more natural, but, OG has better physics like props that have been removed (replaced with static objects that are hard baked into level geometry to save resources) from the console basis of this one, and the water tessellation is really inferior to OG, lacking volumetric effects in places as well, and I've noticed some weirdness when blowing up buildings, oh and character faces are better in OG.
Still, it's worth experiencing this if you're a fan, just get it on sale like I did (4.49€ thanks to 30% off by owning OG on top of current 55% sale).

I hope this guide was of use to someone out there, you get easy quicksaving, tips on tweaking graphics, or even gameplay, and know the tools that you have available!
15 Comments
< >
Lego Liam neeson 23 Oct, 2023 @ 11:28am 
any way to get the dynamic resolution working? i am trying and it does not seem to be working
GENTLE MANNE of LEISURE 14 Oct, 2023 @ 7:05am 
if i use maximum armor in classic suit mode with the imrpovement mod it will lag my game to 14 fps
Nathan  [author] 25 May, 2023 @ 1:34pm 
Aahh gotcha, yeah I'll try to remember to add a line after the devmode section to mention about it enabling extra lines that you can disable with the displayinfo line, forgot when I made the guide (had those from vanilla Crysis 1 just by habit so it has been a while)
Corrinoscopy 25 May, 2023 @ 1:02pm 
Alright, i figured it out for real this time. r_displayinfo 0 in the autoexec will prevent any weird icons appearing during gameplay. It was an issue with devmode but with the r_displayinfo 0 command in the autoexec it is no longer a problem. thank you so much for this guide
Nathan  [author] 25 May, 2023 @ 12:50pm 
Just remember that without those lines you can't quicksave!
Corrinoscopy 25 May, 2023 @ 12:47pm 
Figured it out! was an issue with launch options. Caused either by -devmode or -console
Nathan  [author] 25 May, 2023 @ 12:44pm 
If I remember correctly a floppy disk icon inside a rotation circle arrow or something similar is the save icon you should be seeing when you press whatever button you made the quicksave button, assuming you made a quick save button, and also checkpoints probably use the same icon, not sure immediately what a mountain icon is? If the floppy disk icon is showing up all the time, even when you're not pressing buttons and suspect no checkpoints are triggered, then I dunno, sounds like maybe a sticky key or something?
Corrinoscopy 25 May, 2023 @ 12:39pm 
I'm getting these weird icons on the top left of my screen after installing. A floppy disk icon, a mountain icon, stuff like that. Do you think it's the mod or an issue with enabling the console?
Plλyer 4 Feb, 2023 @ 8:19pm 
Thank you for this game more enjoyable now.
Nathan  [author] 24 Nov, 2022 @ 5:54am 
Thanks for telling me, I'll update the guide to mention this info!